Headaches

I've always had headaches. I am told I started getting them around the age of five. They have progressed to full blown migraines. I have been to numerous doctors, who have not found anything really WRONG with me.

I think my parts have something to do with it. When my parts are more activated, as a system, I get more headaches. I think having many different "people" and trains of thought in my head tax my brain. I know all the biology about how headaches are caused by increased blood flow to the brain and everything from food, to sleep, to posture, to stress can affect headaches. I get all that but I think having multiple conflicting arguments with people of all ages in my head MUST contribute!

I currently have a headache.... I've started the process of REALLY dealing with some deep issues in therapy. It's alerted the entire system and now the headaches are worse. I think the headache may be an alert that the system is in stress and needs some kind of help. I'm just so tired, scared and lonely. It's hard to take the time I need to process everything. It's easier to just forget about it but I can't forget a headache, especially when it's so bad it seems my teeth and hair actually hurt. I know I need to let the hurt parts talk, listen to the exiles and address what's going on but tonight, I just can't do any more. I've dropped into The Reporter part. I don't like that part very much today but I guess it means the system isn't ready to feel everything yet.

And that makes sense... it is 11:34pm and I have to be up by 6am. We really DO need to go to sleep. Until later...

“I had more friends when I hated myself!”
I proclaimed the statement above during an exasperated, confused, rejected moment of my last week. I’ve come a long way on my road to recovery from an eating disorder but now I’m fighting a new demon. My current burdens are related to relationships.

I have a theory (as I usually do) about my current struggles. When I was stuck in my eating disorder, that is all I knew, all I cared for, all I focused on. People were an afterthought. I struggled with relationships while in my eating disorder as well, but I let nothing stand in the way of ED and I. My relationship with ED was the only one I allotted any effort. I was the perfect Juliet, ready to kill myself in order to be with my Romeo (ED).

My eating disorder is now gone and I’m left to face real people. I never learned how to have true adult relationships. My eating disorder started at a young age (sometimes I think as early as two years old). By the time I was 18 it was in full swing; threatening to take my life. My relationship with ED was NOT a healthy, adult relationship. It was dripping with neglect, distain, malice, manipulation and fear.

Now, when faced with the ups, downs, conflict and compromise of real relationships I am at a loss! I’m 29 years old and don’t know how to navigate a safe, balanced friendship. Romantic relationships aren’t even “on the menu.” I learned from an early age to depend on one thing and one thing only! ED was ALL that mattered. ED gave me everything and took everything away. ED was my God. When I banished ED from my life I needed to find a way to fill the hole left behind.

At first, I filled it with activities. Staying busy helped for awhile but in the end left me burnt out and just as empty. I began filling the void with people. People are fun and caring. Relationships are an important part of life. It seemed to work until I found myself in a cycle of disappointment and abandonment, losing one friend after another. I was depending on them too much. I expected my friends to be my everything. The problem with making someone my savior is that people are intrinsically flawed. People will NEVER fill me up.

I am thrilled to be where I am today in recovery from my eating disorder. I have freedom from food, weight and obsessive exercise. I no longer look towards binging, purging or starving to make me feel worthy. I truly love myself. My struggles today are with feelings of loneliness. I believe complete recovery is a journey through many stages of growth. This must be my next phase. I accept the challenge. I look forward to the day I can reflect and say, “I used to struggle with having normal relationships but today I am secure and enjoy healthy relationships with friends, family and myself.” Until that day, I focus on staying present in the moment and learning more about my path to complete recovery.

Exiles

I've made some good progress lately with my parts. We all want to move faster though. We are anxious to unburden Pandora. She seems to be the forefront of almost every issue that comes up lately. I don't know how to proceed though and my therapist doesn't really know IFS.

In the meantime, I'm still learning more about my system. I'm getting to know my exiles better. I found a new part this past week. It's an exile; one of my Little Ones. They've all been sort of one chorus of voices for the longest time. They were too scared to separate. As I've been working through some of my harder past issues and making big steps to care for myself maybe they are feeling safer.

I can't help but be scared of them. It's a strange cycle. They are scared of me for locking them away so they all joined together to keep from being identifiable. I'm scared of them so I lock them away. Now I'm trying to break the cycle and it's hard when it's embedded in mistrust and abandon.

My abandonment issues have been front and center in the past few days. A friend (very good friend) of mine is in the hospital and very very sick. She's cut me out of that part of her life. I don't understand it. I'm trying to remember that it's not about me and she may just need different things than I do when I'm sick. Then I had a dream about my old therapist. She was such a problem for me and every now and then something happens to force all that pain back into my life.

I know its all connected. I know God's going to take care of all of this but I can't help but be sad, lonely and anxious at times.

Birthday

I regret I have not posted to my blog in some time. I apologize to anyone who was reading it.

Yesterday was my birthday and I took today off of work. Many people think this was to "play" but it's been a really hard day.

My anxiety level has been through the roof as one appointment led to the next. First was a visit to the Women's Doctor, something I've literally been avoiding for at least 5 years due to my previous sexual assault. (The appointment wasn't great but I avoided the physical exam for another week so at least I didn't have to deal with that.) Then I did a food experiential with my nutritionist, which is stressful in itself but I had to go to a restaurant that I've never been. I was running late and got lost trying to get there. Then I had an appointment with my therapist, that I was sort of looking forward to because I had lots I needed to talk about but I got derailed. I ran into a close family friend at the office and found out she's seeing MY THERAPIST! I don't like that. I don't want anyone I know to see my therapist. SHE'S MINE! It is this really weird, stressful dynamic. I don't want to hear about my therapist from someone else. I don't want to hear how she's different or has different rules for one person over me.

Now, I still feel sick to my stomach and have a headache from all the stress but I feel like my Birthday weekend is running out and I should be having FUN! I have to go to my terrible job tomorrow and I don't want to! All I want to do is sleep away this pain (physical and emotional) but then I will also sleep away my day!

My little parts (Rapunzel in particular) wants to watch the movie Tangled but I feel silly for that. I also worry it will make the headache worse. Then Victoria feels like we haven't accomplished enough this weekend (which is a lie) so wants me to get up and clean the house (which really DOES need it). Where is my sense of balance? Why can't I just understand what I want to do? I've been like this with food lately too. I have no idea what I want to eat at any given time.

I feel pretty messy right now. I want someone to tell me what to do or take care of me or at least tell me I'm okay!

Black Swan

I just saw the movie Black Swan. My mind is racing. I have to wonder if I'm slightly similar to the Nina in the movie. Are my parts slowly driving me mad?

Swan Lake has always been my favorite ballet. The music, the movement, the story ... it's beautiful. But it's pretty twisted when we really analyze it.....

Basic plot:

Young, innocent, beautiful girl is put under a spell by an evil wizard so that he can control her. She's only allowed to take human form at night, while by day she's a swan. She falls in love with a prince who "mistakenly" pledges his love to the evil wizard's daughter. The girl then commits suicide to avoid the tragedy of his "mistake."

In the movie I just saw with Natalie Portman, she gets the staring role in the ballet and basically goes crazy. She cannot handle the duality of the role as she has to tap into her "dark side." I am always wondering what I will discover as I get to know more of my parts, especially the scary ones. Will they overtake me? Am I really me? What do they know that I don't?

I've been working a lot with my little parts lately and it's very painful. The deep hurt they feel is hard to bare. Something came up recently about my old therapist. I was so attached to her, the Little Ones were so attached. I can hardly stand to hear her name. I don't know how to get her out of my head and now she's infiltrated my dreams. When will it stop?!?!

Fairy Tales?

What are fairy tales today? I've been trying to come up with a grown up / mental health fairy tale for months. I can lay the ground work for the beginning... abuse, neglect, abandon, betrayal, control but how does it end? There's no good ending. Any way I spin it the story doesn't work. It either ends realistically, which means loss and struggle or ends in a fairy tale format which only furthers the disappointment that fantasies never happen.

I wanted to come up with a story to give hope but be realistic. I can't do that. I wanted to come up with a story with a lesson of "Bad things happen but it's okay, they can turn out right." I wanted to write an adult fairy tale that explains mental illness to adults and children with the message that it will be okay.

As I sit in my lonely, gloomy condo, crying on Christmas Eve, I realized there is no good ending. I'm contemplating the next 48 hours I will be spending with my family and dreading it. Why do I hate them so much? I love them...

I just ate my breakfast and want to throw it up. I haven't purged in 7 weeks but it's getting harder and harder. Especially, when I add the fact that I am in some manner nauseous or having acid reflux all the time.

I have so much to do. I have to wrap all these Christmas presents and clean my house and about 100 other things but all I want to do is curl up and disappear.

My whole system is hurting. I worked with my therapist to try to prepare but it's not working. My parts are all enmeshed and in panic. This is the worst I have felt near Christmas, ever. What's so different this time? Why so much pain this time?

Decision

I've decided to stay in my current job, live in my house and turn down the Ohio job.

There's more to life than a job.

Do I want my current job? Do I think it will be any less frustrating?

NO!

Am I going to regret my decision?

Probably...

Would I regret the decision either way?

Definitely!

I have barley been able to think of anything else for weeks. I have to stop the debate. I worry that I taking the safe route out of fear.

It can't be such a bad thing to pick the safe answer when recovery is on the line.

I made my decision on a plane trip from CT to FL. I couldn't stop thinking about it so figured it was time to make a decision. I'm lucky people on planes are in their own little worlds because I was crying most of the trip. I don't want to keep make this decision. I really want to be able to be done with it all but even today I'm already second guessing myself.

I'm starting to dread work on Monday and the hot winters already. I'm starting to like my life here though.

I'm so conflicted!